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Consultation response: Defra's draft plans to improve air quality

Details

Type:
Consultation response

Status:
Current

Date: 6 November 2015

Contact details

The RCP's consultation response on the government's draft plans to improve air quality. We have significant concerns that the proposed plans are insufficient to tackle the scale of the problem with air quality in the UK, which are outlined in the report.

Summary

We urge the government to come forward with a programme that goes beyond the legal aspects of compliance; a plan that makes a major inroad into the public health impacts of NO2.

Although walking and cycling strategies are referenced in the draft plan, the government is missing an opportunity to maximise the societal health gains by placing improvements to active travel, public transport and the urban environment at the heart of its new air quality proposals.

The draft plan does not consider the inequity of increased air pollution exposure in deprived communities or the emerging evidence of increased susceptibility in these populations.

There are also opportunities for the plan to work more closely with measures to tackle climate change which are not embraced

The draft plan has no specific measures to halt and reverse the ‘dieselisation’ of our vehicle fleet.